Why Diets Don't Work...And What Does

You may have noticed this interesting comment from a therapist colleague after my last blog, "The Scale: Friend or Foe:"

"We've seen many eating disorders begin with people who are overweight trying to get healthy by dieting. I would not recommend daily weighing for college students because that's when so many eating disorders begin."

I think I had better make myself clear: I am against dieting for weight loss. Here's why.

First of all, "diet" is a confusing word because it can mean "the customary food and drink of a culture, a person, or an animal." Usage example: "Mom, my friend is on a vegan diet, so please don't make creamed spinach for dinner." There are also diets prescribed for medical reasons, like the DASH diet or a diet to control diabetes. These are necessary and serve a healthy motivation.

But most of us know "diet" in its more insidious incarnation as "a temporary and highly restrictive program of eating in order to lose weight." This is the kind of diet that I'm referring to in this post.

Why am I against that kind of diet? So many reasons, so little space...

1. As weight loss programs, diets don't work! Yes, you lose weight, but about 95% of people who lose weight by dieting will regain it in 1-5 years. Since dieting, by definition, is a temporary food plan, it won't work in the long run. Moreover, the deprivation of restrictive diets may lead to a diet-overeat or diet-binge cycle. And since your body doesn't want you to starve, it responds to overly-restrictive diets by slowing your metabolism which of course makes it harder to lose weight.

2. Fad diets can be harmful. They may lack essential nutrients, for example. Moreover, they teach you nothing about healthy eating. Thus, when you've "completed" your fad diet, you simply boomerang back to the unhealthy eating patterns that caused your weight gain in the first place! This is the beginning of "yo-yo dieting," which can bring its own health problems in its wake.

3. Overly restrictive diets can take all the pleasure out of eating! There's no reason to be a sacrificial lamb, so to speak, to lose weight.

4. Dieting, along with the frequent and compulsive weighing that accompanies it, can lead to eating disorders. According to one source, people who diet are 8 times as likely to develop an eating disorder as people who don't.

5. Unscrupulous people can peddle "magic weight-loss potions," such as "special" powders and pills, to desperate people, costing them their money and time at best, and fatal health consequences at worse (think "fen-phen," the diet drug that caused often fatal heart valve problems). And have you ever noticed that every diet product claims it will be wondrously effective "if used simultaneously with a healthy diet and regular exercise program?" Skip the magic potions--it's the healthy eating and exercise that are actually the effective ingredients.

Finally, there is this reason:

6. Obesity and overweight can be conditions that are caused by early life trauma. Although I had known this for some time, I was amazed to discover recently all the well-documented research on the obesity-trauma connection. In one early study of 286 obese people, half had been sexually abused as children. In these cases, "...overeating and obesity weren't the central problems, but attempted solutions." For these people, therapy might be a prerequisite to healthy weight loss--it could help clients identify the feelings and situations behind emotional over-eating and replace it with healthier self-care patterns. (A much larger study of over 17,000 people provided further documentation of the links between "adverse childhood experiences;" unhealthy behaviors like smoking, drinking, and overeating; and mental, emotional, and even medical disorders later in life.)

Okay, okay. You want to lose weight before you attend your class reunion. It's perfectly fine to control portions and skip desserts so you can resemble your svelte high school self. In fact, keep going with that plan--it's healthy eating. But skipping meals or starving yourself is not.

So the first step towards permanent healthy weight loss is, somewhat ironically, to lose the diet and the diet mindset. Instead think about a Healthy Eating Plan (a HEP) that you could live with and enjoy for life. The best answer is to dieting, then, is: A lifelong program of everyday healthy, pleasurable eating coupled with regular exercise. To lose weight, eat less and exercise more. How boring! How prosaic! Yet how true.

In my next post, I'll offer guidelines to help you follow a program of pleasurable--yes, pleasurable--healthy eating that can help you arrive at a healthy weight and maintain it.

Great article! I love how you set out the facts in a clear and simple manner.
I am someone who suffered with an eating disorder for over a decade and finally recovered mainly through letting go of the diet mentality.
Today I have been recovered for over 3 years and I eat what I want, I know what hunger means, no food is off limits and I have remained at the same healthy weight for years.
Thank you for bringing awareness to the futility of dieting.

You are welcome! I like the way you outlined some of the elements of healthy eating--eating what you want, responding to hunger, including all foods in a healthy eating plan, and staying at a healthy weight. Congratulations on letting go of the diet mentality!

I just came across your article, while searching for more information about why diets don't work. I used to be a Slimming Consultant for a company in the UK. I myself was a serial dieter, but what really converted me was the dread in my group members faces every single week before they stepped on the scales. Quick trip to the WC, light clothing, comments how much they dread this weeks weigh in ect. People would lose weight, maintain it for a little while, then had a blow out and gained again. A vicious cycle was created! Then again, that's what the diet industry wants! Longterm successes don't make any money! They need the repeat custom to line their pockets!
I've read so many books and I am now convinced that diets don't work. I just wish more people would try to find healthier ways to lose weight. Like the previous poster, I know only eat when I am hungry and stop when I am satisfied. At the beginning, my diet was anything but healthy. I even had chocolate cake for breakfast a couple of times!
Healthy eating returned to my menu ones I had the "I can eat what I want" out of my system.
We have to learn to listen to our bodies again. Our children are still very good at it! They rarely finish what's on their plates!

for your perspectives as both an insider for the diet industry and as a "serial dieter." It sounds like you're doing much better now. Good for you! You are so right that people cannot tell themselves "I can eat whatever I want whenever I want" and still stay at a healthy weight.

I agree with 98% of what you have written. It is simple, informative and easy to follow. In my opinion you fell in to an age old trap right at the end. Your statement of "Eat less, exercise more" has been proven time and time again to be wrong when weight loss is concearned. This is often related to telling a car owner to put less fuel in and do more miles. It wont work, it cant work. People who do this are the ones who end up feeling tired from the increased work and reduced calories and then give up because its just to knackering.
Much better is to cut out all the empty, non-benificial calories from processed food and alike. Reduce your sugar consumption, eat real food, quality fats and the go and train.

Hi Martyn! In my opinion,the recommendation to "eat less and exercise more" is still the best one we've got. True, it doesn't take genetic differences into account. But as long as someone doesn't go to extremes with diet and exercise--eating too little, exercising too much, it's a formula that will work for gradual and healthy weight loss. I do agree that a helpful first step is cutting out the empty calories, say, from soda and processed foods. Good point. Thanks for writing!

I have just started a blog about food, one of my strong views is this exact point - that dieting simply doesn't work. I would really welcome any opinions because this is something I feel really strongly about.